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United Nations set a Sustainable Development Goal to provide clean water for everyone (SDG 6). The successful implementation of SDG 6 is still miles to go. Public awareness’s role as a key factor in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 is vital but received less attention from researchers in the past. To understand the role of public awareness and other relevant factors in achieving SDG 6, we have collected a cross-sectional dataset from a developing country and applied a partial least square structural equation modelling approach. The results revealed that willingness to pay for clean water, social influence, and facilities provided by the government, public awareness, and knowledge about contaminated water positively influence the households’ intentions to use clean water. We also found that public awareness partially mediates relationships. Study results have useful policy implications for governments, NGOs, and other stakeholder organizations working on achieving SDG 6 in developing countries.

This study aims to evaluate the environmental performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through green human resource management (GHRM), green transformational leadership (GTFL), and green innovation (GI). This study is based on resource-based view theory and ability-motivation-opportunity theory. We collected data from 315 manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises using a survey questionnaire. We applied structural equation modeling using Smart partial least squares to analyze the collected data. Results of the study indicate that green ability and green motivation have a significant impact on environmental performance and green innovation mediates the relationship between GHRM practices and environmental performance. Findings also revealed that green transformational leadership's moderation strengthens the relationship between green ability and green innovation, but surprisingly weakens the relationship between green motivation, green opportunity, and green innovation. The paper provides a valuable understanding and novel approach for directors of SMEs in developing countries to improve their environmental performance through GHRM and green innovation.

In this pandemic, it is common knowledge for every establishment, institution, and community that contact tracing plays a crucial role in containing the COVID 19 virus. This study utilized experimental methods to identify the prototype’s data accuracy, precision, and effectiveness compared to manual or digital contact tracing. The experiment exhibits a quick detection capability of RFID card users in varying distances and accurately reflects and records the users’ information thatis only within the booth. However, upon the temperature check, the scanned values were inaccurate compared to a commercial temperature scanner but werealmost precise in terms of its consecutive temperature values. The ability of the device to determine the rights to enter to the premises based on the temperature also requires development particularly the Arduino device itself since the inconsistency of the program was assumed to be due to maxing out the storage capacity for programming codes. The findings of the study indicated that the integration of the RFID technology to contact tracing had the potential to be a candidate of a new contacttracing method viable to the institution and alike. &nbsp

Organizational effectiveness is vital component to satisfy the clients and the textile sector is not exempted in this context. This study focuses on examining the organizational effectiveness of textile exporting firms of Pakistan. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of these firms based on different indicators such as; effectiveness, transparency and marketing practices of the committees. The data sources for this study were compiled from preliminary data from a sample of 377 senior management employees. The research population selected for the study is the management cadre of those textile firms who manufacture products for exports. This study has many contributions for the managers and clients who are associated with textile exports. The findings significantly support the hypothesis of a positive relationship between transparency and effectiveness of the firms and the positive relationship between the board performance and efficiency of the firms. However, it is established that the positive correlation hypothesis between marketing practices and the effectiveness of the firm has insignificant results.

Background: Patients with life-threatening hemorrhage due to blunt torso trauma are at a particularly high risk of being under-diagnosed. The pulse pressure starts narrowing down before the traditional parameters start changing, making it a useful tool for assessing and planning early intervention. Objective: Toassess the utility of low pulse pressure in predicting massive transfusion or operative intervention in patients with isolated blunt torso trauma. Material and Methods: total of 186 patients were included. The pulse pressure and mean arterial pressure were calculated. Vitals, pulse pressure, and mean arterial pressure were monitored every 15 min during the first 6 h, then every 30 min during the next 6 h and afterwards, every 4 h until discharge. Chi-square test and an independent t-test (as appropriate) were applied to compare variables with pulse pressure at the time of presentation. A Differences were considered as statistically significant at p-value ≤ 0.05. Results: total of 55.9% of these patients had injuries due to road traffic accidents. Emergency operative intervention was provided to 26.3% of the patients. Death was 4.3%. Massive transfusion was required by 26.3% of the patients. There was a statistically significant association between low pulse pressure and sex, length of stay, repeat eFAST, emergency operational intervention, outcome, massive transfusion, number of crystalloids consumed within the first four hours after presentation, injury severity score, systolic blood pressure, and pulse rate. Conclusion: The pulse pressure

Based on the perceptions of the local farmers, this study aims to assess the effects of socioeconomic factors and climatic change on the groundwater livelihood system, with a particular focus on in situ Persian wheels/dug wells. Farmers’ perceptions of climate change and how it is affecting their way of life in the Soan River Basin have also been evaluated to determine the most appropriate adaptive interventions. Information and literature about dug wells was unavailable, which stressed the need to carry out this survey. A structured close-ended questionnaire was designed and administered with as much quantitative data as possible. Random sampling opted for a 5 km buffer zone across the Soan River and its tributaries. Union councils having more than 50% of their area lying in the buffer zone were surveyed, and data was collected. Fifty UCs fell within this criterion, and six dug wells from each Union Council were surveyed. The results of our survey collecting local farmer’s perceptions determined that about 70% of respondents agreed about climate change in the Soan Basin of Pakistan, and 62% of farmers reported that climate change severely impacted their livelihood by affecting agricultural productivity and water availability. Ninety-two percent reported summer becoming hot, 72% highlighted that winters are becoming less cold, and 96% reported that average annual rainfall has decreased compared to 10 years before. About 72% of respondents indicated that available water in their dug wells had decreased, and 80% of respondents explained that their crop yield had decreased compared to 10 years before. Sixty percent preferred drip and 35% sprinkler irrigation as efficient water management practices to cope with water shortages. Ninety-five percent of farmers were ready to use solar pumps for irrigation to tame high pumping costs. The study recommends integrating solar pumping with drip and sprinkler irrigation systems to enhance farmers’ cropped area and productivity. These vulnerable farmers can enhance their resilience and profitability by adopting high-value agriculture (tunnel farming, off-season vegetables, etc.) instead of conventional crops.

This study was conducted to determine the impact of market orientation on the consumer-based performance of fashion apparel brands. The study also reveals the moderating effect of employee orientation on market orientation and consumer-based performance. The sample of 270 respondents of this study consists of managerial staff who have decisive power with regard to apparel brands in Pakistan . The findings of this study express that all three dimensions of market orientation have a significant and positive impact on the consumer-based performance of fashion apparel brands. Furthermore, the study finds no moderation between customer orientation and consumer-based performance, while for the remaining two dimensions, there is a positive moderation. The management of fashion apparel firms must give considerable importance to market orientation to enhance overall consumer-based performance. This study contributes valuable literature because it focuses on the fashion apparel industry, which is most important for very nearly everyone in the present era.

The assessment of brand equity and its sources is a trend among researchers and garment brand companies nowadays. The purpose of the current study is to explore the impact of two independent variables, including “words of mouth” (WOM) and “brand personality”, on the dependent variable “brand equity”, along with the assessment of mediating effects of “relationship quality”. Previous literature on the subject suggests that multiple sources including “words of mouth” and “brand personality” influence “brand equity”, but no attempts have been made for the assessment of “relationship quality” as a mediator among sources of brand equity in the context of garment brands. The present study aims at filling that gap through the presentation of a statistical model. Respondents in the sample included the regular customers of the garment brands. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to fddd the collected data. The results indicated that the “WOM” and “brand personality” had a significantly positive influence on “brand equity”. “Relationship quality” was found to have a strong mediating effect. The theory of brand equity and the social exchange theory was used to develop a representative model. Results of the study strengthen the premises of the theory of brand equity and the social exchange theory. The researchers recommended the exploration of the influence of other possible mediating variables in future researches. Recommendations were also made for the administrators of the garment brand companies for the consideration of “relationship quality” along with the sources of “brand equity”, including “words of mouth” and “brand personality” for improved decision making and competitive advantage

he aim of this study to find out the impact of relationship marketing on export performance in readymade garments exporting firms of Pakistan. There is also the aim to find the mediating impact of trust between the relationship of relationship marketing and export performance. The present study aims to fill the existing gap in the literature which has been neglected in the previous studies. Data was collected from the managerial staff of readymade garments exporting firms and apply multiple linear regression. After the analysis of collected data, it was found that all the components of relationship marketing used in the study have positive and significant impact on export performance. It was also found that trust partially mediated the relationship of relationship marketing and export performance. At the end researchers recommended that this model can be used with more mediators and enhancing the sample size. It was also recommended to the management of exporting firms that they should more emphasize on trust to improve its export performance to different countries.

This research seeks to examine how transformational leadership and ambidextrous leadership impact employee performance. The study focuses on the mediating role of innovation climate in influencing the relationship both directly and indirectly with employee performance. Previous literature shows that many studies have been conducted to measure the employee’s performance under the leadership. Still, no study has covered the mediating role of innovation climate between leadership and employee performance. The present study aims at filling that gap through the presentation of a statistical model. Respondents in the sample included the managerial staff of textile exporting firms of Pakistan. Multiple linear regression and the PROCESS for mediation model in the SPSS was used to analyze the collected data. The results indicated that the CEO transformational leadership and ambidextrous leadership had a significantly positive influence on employee performance. In addition, innovation climate was found to have a strong mediating effect. The researchers recommended the exploration of the impact of other possible moderating variables in future researches. Recommendations were also made for the top management of textile firms for the consideration of innovation climate along with the improvement of employee performance.

The study aims to compare CO2 emissions, renewable energy, trade openness, gross domestic product (GDP), financial development (FD), and remittance in selected G-20 countries. The study carried out fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) and dynamic ordinary least square (DOLS) models for estimation covering annual data from the year 1990–2019. LM tests detected the cross-section dependency while stationarity of the variables was checked through Levin-Lin-Chu and Im-Pesaran-Shin tests along with Hansen's Covariate-Augmented Dickey Fuller (CADF) test in the presence of cross-section dependency. The panel unit root tests reported that all variables became stationary after converting them into the first difference. The Panel Cointegration and Wester-Lund test examined the existence of long-run equilibrium nexus among selected variables in the context of G-20 countries. The study's findings show that there is a significant and negative relationship between renewable energy and CO2 emissions. It was proven in two models that the economic growth of selected G-20 countries has a positive relationship with CO2 emissions. Furthermore, findings indicate that the coefficient of financial development is positive and significantly impacts CO2 emissions. The remittances have a significant positive effect on CO2 emissions, while trade openness has an insignificant impact on CO2 emissions in both models. This research will enlighten policymakers, researchers, governments, and environmentalists toward attaining a sustainable environment by wisely consuming remittances and renewable energy resources.

Purpose The knowledge about a specific product develops self-confidence among consumers and facilitates them to share and search for information. This study aims to highlight the effects of consumer’s self-esteem on search and share intentions of information. Furthermore, this relationship was analyzed through the mediation of subjective knowledge (SK). Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from 1,136 Chinese respondents having a perception of purchasing cellphones. To analyze the data, check its normality and validity, analysis of moment structures (AMOS) was used. However, to inspect the relationship of study variables, “structural equation modeling” and Hayes and Preacher’s (2014) model were used to mediate the analysis. Findings The study results revealed that consumer’s self-confidence (information acquisition confidence, persuasive knowledge confidence, personal outcome decision-making and market interface confidence) affect the information search and share the intention of consumers. Additionally, the presence of SK significantly and positively mediates this relationship. Originality/value This study intends to investigate the role of all practical aspects of consumer’s self-confidence in searching and sharing information by mediating the role of SK. Moreover, it used all the possible and useful dimensions, which were ignored by previous studies.

The study explores the importance of market orientation strategy to enhance brand performance and the mediating role of positioning strategies. The researcher used questionnaires to collect data from the managers of middle and high fashion apparel manufacturing firms based on the quantitative research approach. The data was collected from 220 managers who were directly involved in the decision-making process. The analysis has revealed a significant impact of market orientation strategy on Pakistan’s fashion brands' performance, with the mediating effect of positioning strategies. The management of firms must give considerable importance to market orientation strategies to enhance overall brand performance. The market orientation strategies’ development is also helpful in building different positioning strategies through which performance gets enhanced. This study contributes valuable literature because it focuses on the fashion apparel industry's context, which is almost most important for everyone in the present era. Firms can focus on tight product quality control, innovative manufacturing processes, trained and experienced personnel, and extensive customer service.

PurposeIn the modern business world, the main focus of the organizations is to improve the quality of the products and minimize the wastage of raw material. Keeping in view the green theory and improve the efficiency of the organization, the focus of the current study is to investigate the relationship between total quality management (TQM) and green innovation (GI), and examine how TQM practices can facilitate firms to achieve GI objectives. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is also an important factor for organizations, and this study also focuses on the mediating role of CSR between the relationship of TQM and GI.Design/methodology/approachThis is an empirical study. Data were gathered from the top management of 355 SMEs working in Pakistan through a questionnaire survey; the PLS-SEM approach was used to analyse the data.FindingsResults of the study show that TQM has significant impacts on two aspects of GI namely green product innovation and green process innovation. Moreover, results also reveal that CSR partially mediates the relationship between TQM and GI.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited to manufacturing SMEs and future research should test this model on non-manufacturing sector too. The findings of the study provide significant roadmap to the management of small and medium-sized manufacturing firms that how they can reduce wastage and improve the product and process innovation in their organizations through TQM and CSR.Originality/valueThis study contributes to bridging research gaps in the literature and advances how TQM, directly and indirectly, help firms improve green innovation via mediating roles of CSR.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 was first reported in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019 and rapidly spread out globally, affecting 130 million individuals and starting a global pandemic. An efficacious vaccine is considered an essential tool to reduce mortality and morbidity rate related to the pandemic. Nine different vaccine candidates announced the efficacy results of their respective phase 3 trial testing up till January 2021. By the end of June 2021, the administration of seven different vaccines started under the supervision of the World Health Organisation. The current article was planned to discuss the biological composition, efficacy and primary efficacy endpoint described in literature, and to identify the factors that could affect vaccine efficacy and vaccine coverage. Key Words: SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, Efficacy, Vaccine coverage, Efficacy endpoint, Factors.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), about seven million traffic accidents claimed more than 36,560 human lives in the U.S. in 2018 . These statistics have prompted researchers to investigate the driver characteristics associated with safety-critical events (SCE). This paper presents a hybrid CatBoost algorithm for identifying the feature levels associated with SCE. The model accounts for numerous difficulties and drawbacks reported in the literature. The model was trained and validated using the entire set of the Second Strategic Highway Research Program Naturalistic Driving Study (SHRP2-NDS) events (crash/near-crash and normal/baseline). Results indicate that secondary tasks (interacting with object in-vehicle, reaching for objects in the vehicle, pet interaction, cellphone/tablet use, and writing/texting), intersection influence (parking lots/driveway/entrance/exit, uncontrolled intersections, traffic signals, interchanges, and stop signs), income (under $29,000 and $100,000–$149,000), age (16–19 and 20–24), traffic density (level of service C, D, and E/F), high sensation-seeking tendency (scoring 18–35 on a scale of 35), low driving knowledge (scoring 0–8.9 on a 19-point scoring system questionnaire), and gender = female are the feature levels having an association with SCE with a probability varying between 51% and 87%. Results also revealed that passenger interactions, eating/drinking, driving away from intersections or interchanges, being age 70—79, or driving in traffic density = A are more related to safe driving. Consideration of these results can contribute to reducing roadway crashes and improve traffic safety.

This study investigated the impact of training, job rotation and managerial coaching on employee commitment in banking sectors of Faisalabad, Pakistan. Employee training is the essential element for the success of an organization in order to achieve its goals. Training helps the organizations in building more productive and committed workforce. By providing opportunities for individual employees to grow professionally, training programs i.e. job rotation and managerial coaching can thus foster greater employee commitment. The data for this research was gathered through use of close ended questionnaire that is designed in a Likert scale format. Based on convenience sampling method 273 participants participated in survey. Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used for analyzing the data. Results obtained reveal that the training, job rotation and managerial coaching given to the employees in banking sectors of Faisalabad, Pakistan improves their commitment. In the Last, recommendations are also given for future research studies.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a powerful concept to drive action towards a more sustainable future. However, the SDGs are formulated in a qualitative and generic way whereas specific and quantitative definitions of targets are required to steer policy and practice.The Indus river basin is a global hotspot for future climate change and socioeconomic development. The basin has the largest continuous irrigation scheme in the world, and hydropower is developing rapidly with a large hydropower potential still untapped. Therefore, water, food and energy are strongly interlinked in the basin’s water-food-energy nexus. The basin already faces insecurity of water, food and energy in the present situation, and with strong projected climate and socioeconomic change, achieving the SDGs for these three resources in the basin will be challenging.Here we present a novel approach to translate the global SDGs for water, food and energy (SDGs 2, 6 and 7) to quantitative targets specified for the Indus river basin. Our approach is based on a resource accounting framework operating at sub-basin scale and monthly time step, combining models and geospatial data. The approach uses ensembles of downscaled projections for three climate change scenarios driving water availability and three sets of downscaled projections of socioeconomic drivers, including population and GDP, as main drivers for the demand for water, food and energy. The accounting framework considers dependencies between the three resources and represents scenario-specific exchange of resources between sub-basins in this transboundary river basin. The approach results in scenario-specific quantitative targets for water, food and energy to be realized to achieve the three related SDGs at the river basin scale.

Muhammad Mohsin,1 Khalid Jamil,2 Sobia Naseem,3 Muddassar Sarfraz,4,6 Larisa Ivascu5 1School of Business, Hunan University of Humanities, Science and Technology, Loudi, Hunan, 417000, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Economics and Management North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Economics and Management, Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, 050043, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Commerce & Business, Government College University Faisalabad, Layyah Campus, Layyah, 31200, Pakistan; 5Faculty of Management in Production and Transportation, Politehnica University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania; 6College of International Students, Wuxi University, 214105, Wuxi, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Muddassar Sarfraz, Email muddassar.sarfraz@gmail.comPurpose: The study objective is to investigate the relationship between workplace ostracism, workplace incivility, and knowledge hiding behavior (evasive hiding, playing dumb, rationalized hiding) while considering the mediating role of job anxiety.Methods: The study collected data through structured questionnaires from 275 participants (ie, employees) working in the small to medium-sized enterprise of five big cities of Pakistan. The study adopted a structured equation modeling technique for data analysis.Results: Significantly, the study results suggest a positive effect of workplace ostracism and workplace incivility on employees’ knowledge hiding behavior, and job anxiety significantly mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism, workplace incivility, and knowledge hiding behavior of employees.Conclusion: The present study highlights the need to examine the personality disposition for understanding the relationship between the variables (eg, workplace ostracism, workplace incivility, knowledge hiding behavior). Employees’ inappropriate behavior had suppressed by initiating a campaign for a realistic job preview, setting an exceptional example. The study significantly contributes to the current literature on knowledge hiding behavior by presenting valuable insight into organizational and individual variables, subsequently influencing the knowledge hiding behavior of individuals. Indeed, this study is the first to investigate the predictive effect of the proposed variables.Keywords: workplace ostracism, workplace incivility, job anxiety, knowledge hiding behavior, SMEs

PurposeGiven the importance of frugal innovation for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in developing countries, this study aims to explore the role of IT resources on frugal innovation through the mediating roles of knowledge sources and to what extent the relationship between sources of knowledge and frugal innovation is strengthened or weakened under the moderating effects of market turbulence.Design/methodology/approachThis is an empirical study. Data were gathered from 355 SME employees of Pakistan through a questionnaire survey; the variance-based PLS-SEM approach was used to analyze the data.FindingsFindings reveal the significant impacts of IT resources on different aspects of frugal innovation, namely, frugal functionality (FF), frugal cost (FC) and frugal ecosystem (FE). Moreover, the paper highlights the mediating roles of sources of knowledge in the relationship between IT resources and frugal innovation in frugal functionality and frugal cost. Findings also revealed that the moderation of market turbulence strengthens the effects of sources of knowledge on frugal functionality and ecosystem, but surprisingly weakens the relationship between sources of knowledge and frugal cost.Research limitations/implicationsTo bring a deeper understanding of the significant role of IT and knowledge sources, future research should examine the potential moderating role of environmental factors or perceived organizational support or mediating role of knowledge management processes in the relationship between IT resources and frugal innovation.Practical implicationsThe paper provides a valuable understanding and novel approach for directors of SMEs in developing countries to improve their frugal innovation capability through IT and knowledge resources.Originality/valueThis study contributes to bridging research gaps in the literature and advances how IT resources, directly and indirectly, help firms improve frugal innovation capability via mediating roles of sources of knowledge.